


Forgiveness

by Miri1984



Series: A Wilde Week 2020 [1]
Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Day 1, Gen, a wilde week 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:41:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27579982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miri1984/pseuds/Miri1984
Summary: A Wilde Week Day One: Prompt: Forgiveness | Revenge | Apathy.
Relationships: Zolf Smith & Oscar Wilde
Series: A Wilde Week 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2015986
Comments: 15
Kudos: 42
Collections: A Wilde Week 2020





	Forgiveness

“Do you want me to do something about it,” Zolf asks, one morning over breakfast. He’s about to go out chasing leads again, on the coast, hunting his giant squid, trying to find the connection between it and Shoin, trying to piece together the bits of this puzzle that seems determined to destroy the world.

“About what?” Oscar asks, sipping tea, distracted. He looks up to see Zolf’s cheeks colour slightly and his eyes drop from Oscar’s face, and Oscar sucks in a breath. “Ah,” he says. “The scar.”

Zolf nods. “I can probably heal it up for you,” he says. “Reduce it a little, anyway. Stop it from… ”

Oscar smiles, deliberately, feeling the pull of the skin near his mouth, knowing it’s difference. “Am I so hideous to look at, Mr Smith?” 

He  _ thinks  _ he manages to keep the bitterness out of his tone.

Zolf looks as though Oscar has punched him.  _ “Fuck, _ no, no you look fine, you look more than… but… but I just…”

Oscar lets the smile soften a little at Zolf’s stammering. “Forgive me, I was teasing,” he says, and Zolf looks resentful at that but stops trying to apologise, but doesn’t look back up. 

“Yeah. Well. Just thought I’d offer, is all. But if you don’t want to then I’ll just…” he moves to get up, leave the room and Oscar feels a sudden twinge.

“What would it involve,” he says, “this… fixing?”

Zolf looks back up at him and tilts his head, staring at him for a long moment. It feels different, being looked at by Zolf. It’s always felt different, he realises, as Zolf’s eyes trace a line down his scar and back up again. He would have thought he would feel self conscious, to be examined thus, but then it has been months and Oscar has spent quarantines and more in his presence. He probably knows Zolf’s face better than his own, these days. He wonders if Zolf feels the same.

“It’s a simple enough spell. You’ll still have the scar but it’ll be more aligned - less noticeable and some extra healing should mean it’ll be more like… a fine line than…” he waves a hand, indicating the jagged width of it. 

“You couldn’t remove it entirely?” Oscar asks, wondering why the thought of that makes his heart thud painfully against his chest. 

Zolf shakes his head. “Not… not yet. I’m not that powerful. But I could make it so you could only see it in…”

Oscar looks down at his hands, spread out atop the scattered papers of his desk, then reaches up to trace a line down the jagged shape of the scar. 

He remembers the bite of the knife.

He remembers the brief moment of wonder  _ did I deserve this? Is this revenge for leaving him, is this a judgement on what we were? On what I pretended to be? _

He realises he has been quiet for a long time and focuses his gaze back on Zolf, whose expression is one Oscar hasn’t seen before. 

There are logistics to this, Oscar knows, he catalogues them. Zolf would have to use resources that they might need for other things. Oscar would have to remove his cuffs, and they still aren’t sure whether the people behind the curses can use their link with him to locate them. He would have to  _ want  _ to go back to how he was before the scar.

“Thank you for the offer,” Oscar says, finally, and Zolf nods, putting his hands to his thighs, moving again to stand. 

“So should we get your cuffs off then? I can do it here or…”

“But no, Mr Smith. I don’t think it would be prudent at this point for you to…  _ fix  _ my face.”

Zolf frowns. “Look, Wilde, I didn’t mean to make you think it was something that  _ needed _ …”

Oscar waves a hand. “I  _ understand, _ ” he snaps, and Zolf’s frown deepens. “I understand,” he says, more softly. “I know you’re only trying to help. And… I know you don’t think I’m hideous or broken or… all the other things you’re frightened I think I am.”

“Wilde…”

“Please. I just don’t think it’s a prudent use of our time, or our resources at the moment.”

Zolf looks uncertain and Oscar has to restrain himself from leaning forward, placing his hands over Zolf’s, asking him to understand.

The scar is a reminder. The scar is a thorn in his side, spurring him on to do what needs to be done to finish the mission.

The scar is a mark that separates the old Oscar from the new.

“He shouldn’t have done that to you,” Zolf says, softly, and Oscar has to stop himself from laughing. There is force behind Zolf’s words, and compassion, and he’s awful at expressing it, but that’s just Zolf, and Oscar finds he wouldn’t have it any other way. Not for anything else in the world.

“Go on,” he says. “I’ve got work to do here.”

Zolf stands, then, still looking at Oscar, and Oscar makes a shooing motion with both hands. “I promise I’ll take a break in a couple of hours. Just go.”

Zolf sighs, then turns.

Then stops.

“You don’t have to punish yourself, Wilde,” he says.

Oscar blinks. “Excuse me?”

He sees Zolf’s shoulders slump as he turns back around. “I did it, after Prague. When you found me. Blamed myself for what happened to the others. But it wasn’t my fault, right? Wasn't my fault that shit went wrong in the world. It wasn’t my fault that Sasha was sick, that Bertie was an idiot, that Hamid… was Hamid. It was my fault what I did, on the airship, though, and that’s why I left, not because of everything else. Take the blame for the things that  _ you  _ did wrong, not for... this.”

Oscar sucks in a breath through his nose. “Yes. Well.” He half smiles, then taps his scar. “This? This  _ was  _ my fault, Zolf. And believe you me when I tell you that admitting anything at all is my fault is a bit of character growth several people, including your former colleagues, would find it very difficult to believe me capable.”

“So what, you want to keep it as a memento? Of the time the Great Oscar Wilde was humbled?”

He shrugs. “Yes.”

Zolf looks at him for a long moment, then draws in a breath of his own. “Okay then,” he says, and it feels like an acknowledgement. An understanding.

“I do mean it when I say thank you for the offer,” Oscar says then. “But for now, no.”

“Right.”

Oscar watches him leave. He looks back down at the paperwork spread out under his hands and wonders, for a moment, what just happened. They are a long, long way away from that first meeting in Hamid’s apartment, Zolf and he, but Oscar, (not for the first time) wonders precisely where they will end up.


End file.
